WordCamp Miami had it’s first freelance workshop last year and it was a huge success (the first workshop to sell out – over 140 people purchased a ticket). This year we brought back this full day workshop with more focused topics, and a great diversity of speakers.
If you are a freelancer, want to become one, or want to be better at business this is DEFINITELY the workshop to be at.
The “Freelancer” Workshop will be on Friday, March 24th. It is a single full-day track.
We have posted speakers and session information on our schedule page.
Jason Mazier
Jason Mazier is the President of Mazier Media, a marketing agency based in Fort Lauderdale. Jason was born and raised in New York City. In his 17-year career, Jason worked on multi-channel marketing campaigns for such clients as Boyce Technologies, LLERO Magazine, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, LiveNation, Holy Cross Hospital, Huntington National Bank, and JPMorgan Chase Bank. Jason is also the founder and host of devLatino – Digital Empowerment Voyage, a podcast highlighting Latinos in technology and the digital space. Follow him on Twitter at @jasonmazier
Talk: “Tools of the Trade (for Freelancer/Small Business Owner)”: In this talk, you will learn about desktop/web apps, mobile apps, and other hacks that will make you run your business professionally and efficiently, while not breaking the bank.
Jodie Ricelli
Talk: “Talking to Clients About Scope and Specs (Using Wapuu)”: You may have seen the amazing stuffed Wapuus at WordCamp US in Philadelphia. Although the final version was adorable, it took months of working with the factory and many prototypes to get to the perfect final product! This talk will tell the story of how Wapuu can teach you to see scoping through a client’s perspective and more importantly, refine your scoping process for future clients.
Krystal Galewski & Leah Halbina
Talk: “From the Front Lines: Finding and Closing the Right Clients”: This talk is for anyone who is out there trying to find and win new business. Applying these steps and principles to your business can help you grow if you’re ready to get out there and make the change. Every company’s biggest challenge is finding and closing sales.
This joint talk will dive into and provide guidance on this common struggle for big companies, small companies and freelancers alike. Strategies and tactics are constantly changing, but making it about your prospect (and not completely about you and your business) can go a long way in a world of standardized sales emails and boilerplate proposals.
Louise Treadwell
Talk: “Pricing Your Services: Are You Selling Yourself Short?”: When one freelancer prices themselves incorrectly, it makes your fellow service providers look dishonest and it sets up unrealistic expectations for customers. In short, poor pricing strategies hurt everyone! Remove yourself from the clearance rack and come learn how to develop a competitive and profitable pricing strategy. (Bring your calculators!)
Pascal Depuhl
Talk: “How To Be A More Productive Freelancer”: This talk would focus on how to use online services, like SalesForce, Evernote, Google and others and combine them with apps like Scannable, Expensify, ect.; automating tasks via IFTTT or Zapier so you can automatically create digital assets, input expense and contact data and track events and tasks to make a small business a productivity take off.
Allie Nimmons
Allie is a self-taught freelance web designer and internet marketer. After attending WCMIA in 2015 and being blown away, she vowed that one day she would be a speaker at a WordCamp conference. She designs and builds sites using WordPress and focuses on SEO rich sites for small businesses and brands who may not be able to afford a custom site from an agency.
Talk: “How to Train Clients to Use Their WordPress Site”: In this presentation specially designed for freelance web designers and developers, you’ll learn how and why to educate your clients on using and updating their WordPress site after launch. You’ll walk away knowing how a focus in education throughout the whole process can benefit both you and your client, as well as how to actually go about training the client on a one-on-one basis.
Melanie Adcock
Talk: “Upping Your Freelance Game”: Are you a freelancer? Or thinking of taking the plunge? I want to share with you the processes I now use to win clients and the process of taking a client from a lead to project delivery. We will touch on incoming leads, client meetings, onboarding, delivery, and more.
Shelly Peacock
Talk: “The NO Badger Zone: How to Get New Business Without The Hard Sell”: If the thought of marketing and selling to new clients terrifies you and makes you just want to lock yourself in a closet.. this talk is for you. As techies, we are about 75% introverts, some more than others. You will learn 6 keys to closing without “Badgering”, and clever ways to “beef up” your bottom line.
We plan to have a Q&A session at the end of the workshop to cover as many questions as possible.
Grab your weekend ticket now to make sure you can attend. Developers should also come to our Learn JavaScript Depply workshop on Sunday, March 26th!
Technology enthusiast and Technical Engineer for Sucuri, Victor previously worked as a desktop publisher and information analyst for several local organizations in Miami, FL. He is constantly researching the role of online security in open-source CMS platforms. When away from the keyboard, going out for long runs or watching sports with his wife and son.
Mark Jaquith has been working with and contributing to WordPress since 2004. He is one of the lead developers of the WordPress core and offers freelance WordPress consulting services through Covered Web Services with a focus on scaling, security, and custom functionality. Mark likes patches that have more red than green, and his favorite WordPress features are the ones that you’re not even aware of. He eagerly looks forward to shooting down your feature suggestions with, “No, but it would make a great plugin!”
Hristo is a WordPress enthusiast who’s done it all: supported WordPress clients, built websites, designed WordPress themes, wrote tutorials, dug deeper into SEO and developed his own WordPress SEO plugin. He’s been fortunate to have his passion for all things WordPress and his job overlap at SiteGround, where he develops and implements various in-house performance boost solutions to help make WordPress websites faster and more secure.
Shayla Price creates and promotes content. She lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Originally from Louisiana, Shayla lives in the Fort Lauderdale area. Connect with her on Twitter: 
Paul Gilzow is the lead programmer for the Division of Marketing and Communications at the University of Missouri, where he has worked as a Web applications programmer since 2005. Certified by the SANS Institute in Web application security, Paul frequently works with campus IT security to deliver presentations to fellow developers and assists in triaging and cleaning up compromised sites on campus. He is also heavily involved with his local OWASP chapter and teaches classes on secure coding practices to local areas businesses and organizations.
Karla Campos is the CEO of Social Media Sass a company specializing in digital marketing training and education. Social Media Sass has trained individuals in topics like WordPress, Joomla, social media, crowdfunding, blogging, content marketing, and SEO to name a few.
Jonathan began tinkering with WordPress websites and plugins eleven years ago, taking the plunge into full-time freelancing shortly thereafter. He has collaborated with the 
Shawn is the Director of IT at Actionable.co, and lives in Ottawa, Canada. His current mandate is the development of the distributed company’s internal business systems and processes, which rely heavily on the integration of various services’ APIs (including WordPress REST) to automate regular processes for this distributed company. Shawn has over 20 years of experience as a web application developer, and has been working with WordPress since 2009.
Robert McFrazier has been in the software industry in the Seattle area for over 15 years in many different roles including LAMP engineer, software developer, technical trainer, architect, technical support, and manager. I have been on the technical review team for two Cassandra books: Learning Cassandra for Administrators and Cassandra Data Modeling and Analysis. Robert enjoys learning new things and working on strong teams. He spends his free time with wife and son trying to stay dry in the pacific northwest.
As a hands on leader of multiple successful companies, Brazilian-born and South Florida-raised Alex Oliveira has helped clients advance their businesses and brands by building and executing interactive marketing campaigns for over 15 years.
Auston is a self-taught programmer, polyglot (PHP, Ruby, Python, JS) & 2x CTO. He’s currently the head instructor at Wyncode Academy, where he helps people develop and refine programming abilities over 10 weeks.
Dr. Anthony Miyazaki leads the Department of Marketing in the College of Business at Florida International University and directs the Master of Science in Marketing program. Over the past several years, he has worked with his team of faculty and administrative staff to reinvent processes so that they are sensible, effective, and efficient by (1) combining innovation with analytics, (2) developing synergies between employees’ professional brands and the organization’s brands, and (3) enhancing the social media influence of his team members. He teaches Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, and Marketing Management at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as an undergraduate Marketing Yourself (Personal Branding) course.
Dr. Nancy Richmond is a professor and leading speaker in social media, personal branding and marketing. Her passion is to empower and train leaders in effectively leveraging social media for their careers and business. She teaches social media classes for the College of Business and is the co-founder of the Social Media Association at Florida International University
Joseph has been designing and developing websites for over eight years, specializing in UX and UI for both front-end and back-end users. Working with major brands and companies such as Alamo, Dell, DHL, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Intuit, Kabaam and Norwegian Cruise Line – he has developed many different websites ranging from Landing Pages, to Microsites and Single Page Web Apps. Twitter: 
Amanda Giles is WordPress Evangelist and Enthusiast who loves converting people to WordPress. She’s been developing websites since 1994 and has been building WordPress themes since 2009. She hails from New Hampshire where she founded the Seacoast NH WordPress meetup in 2011. She works as an independent consultant and also as part of Spark Development, a small agency focusing on WordPress web development. You can often locate Amanda by her loud sneezes and it’s likely because of these sneezes that she leads such a blessed life. Find her on Twitter @AmandaGilesNH or @SparkDevs
Tanner is a web developer and entrepreneur located in the small town of Granite Falls, Wa. He’s passionate about using technology to promote community. When he’s not tracking down new leads or coding, he loves playing music and spending time with his wife and 4 (soon to be 5) kids. 
Michelle is an independent graphic designer and frontend developer in Minneapolis. Prior to beginning her career, she studied Visual Communications, with minors in Psychology and Sociology. As her work progressed, she also branched into front-end development and user experience design to round out her skillset. 
Sandy Edwards has been working in the online marketing space for over 5 years. She started at a niche firm that utilized WordPress to create sites quickly utilizing several options frameworks. Today, she owns CESquared a WordPress focused Agency that engages in SEO, Project Management and Development. She loves to give back by teaching kids about coding, WordPress, and other technical skills. Sandy is very active in the Orlando WordPress community and is excited to see what changes are coming to the tech space in Florida!
As a Web Strategist and Account Manager, Leah partners with emagine’s clients across the healthcare, biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device sectors to explore opportunities to enhance their online presence with activities such as web design and development, SEO, PPC, social media, content management solutions in WordPress. After attending the University at Buffalo and New York University, Leah began her career in digital strategy working with pharmaceutical companies on their digital strategies. In her spare time, you can find Leah at Orange Theory Fitness or Instagramming her 1 ½ year old Cavapoo, Stella Wayne Rose and 1-year old Cockapoo, Carter James.
Meagan Hanes is a WordPress expert based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, with over 20 years creating websites by hand and over 10 years using WordPress. She creates elegant, high-performance, mobile-optimized web solutions – front-end, back-end, and everything in between. You may have seen her present talks across a variety of WordPress subjects. She gives back to local communities through organizing WordCamp Ottawa 2016 and 2017, running meetups such as the Ottawa WordPress Community, and teaching others to code via Ladies Learning Code. Meagan is a part of the OTGS family, makers of the WPML and Toolset plugins.
Kimberly Lipari is the CoFounder of 
Eduardo Carreiro is a Brazilian web designer and social marketer. His first site was in 1998, for a pharmaceutical company. He lives in the USA since 2007, when a company hired him in Brazil to develop websites in Portuguese. Since then, he improved his skills, leading projects in WordPress websites for multinational companies and Digital Marketing strategies. Recently, he opened your own company.
David is a Growth Engineer, geek, podcaster, and serial entrepreneur who has trained thousands of small business owners and sales professionals on how to find and attract customers in a changing marketplace dominated by Google, Facebook and other 21st-Century phenomena. His clients include multinational conglomerates, Mom & Pops, and everything in between… even household names like Ziglar, Inc. In 1998, David founded 
David Laietta is an organizer of WordPress Orlando and WordCamp Orlando. He has been using WordPress for nine years and builds custom themes and plugins for clients. In addition to WordPress, David is passionate about open source software, online freedoms, internet culture, and constantly learning about the world. He looks forward to chatting with you at WordCamp Miami or on Twitter @davidlaietta.
Andrew currently works for 
Tara Claeys, of Design TLC and Nice Work, LLC, provides custom website and graphic design services, with a focus on creating effective, clean and personalized communication platforms for small to medium businesses. Tara has a marketing background, combined with several years working with WordPress, helping her find solutions for complex marketing communication and website functionality challenges.
Brian, a former Marine Corps software developer is the Co-Founder of 
Project lead for BuddyPress and bbPress. WordPress contributor, BackPress supporter. Cranky driver. Puppy whisperer. Naps required. Currently the Director of Web Engineering at 
Syed Balkhi is an award winning young entrepreneur with several 7 figure online businesses. He was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by United Nations. His work has been featured in Forbes, Inc, Washington Post, FoxBusiness, Entrepreneur, Wired, and many top publications.
Pete is a full-time senior web engineer with 10up. He’s been working with WordPress the past 5+ years, but has been doing web development professionally since the mid 90s, and is the creator of baconipsum.com.
Patrick Rauland is an e-commerce geek. He worked for WooCommerce as Product Manager and helped them to grow into the most popular e-commerce platform on the web. He now creates consults with WooCommerce as an e-commerce expert, he coaches companies on how to optimize their store, and he creates the e-commerce content for Lynda.com.
Christie Chirinos is a Partner in & the Business Manager at Caldera Labs, a WordPress plugin company. Caldera is the company led by Josh Pollock behind Caldera Forms, a leading drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress, and a handful of other free and premium plugins. She has been selling online since 2007, having worked on ecommerce sites, monetized blogs, technology strategy for nonprofit organizations, and now, digital downloads. Christie received her Master of Business Administration degree with a specialization in information systems management from Florida State University, and is currently based out of New York City.
Mike Herchel is a front-end web developer at Lullabot and has worked on prominent projects such as the Syfy network, SpaceX, Principal Financial, and more. He’s been passionate about web development since creating his first website in 2001. 
Aleksander is the CEO and a Joomla Extension Directory team member. He is a frequent speaker at WordCamps and Joomla Days around the world. He will be talking about Joomla and showing to WordPress developers how they handle plugin contributions.